PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It was a Sunday night meeting at the UPMC South Side facility, after an emotional game, where Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi addressed his team about his viral postgame comments after the loss to Notre Dame.
"Started off with my players, apologizing to our football team, our guys, about my postgame comments which obviously didn't come out the way I wanted them to come out, sometimes that happens," Narduzzi said.
Narduzzi said in South Bend following the game 'as a football coach you lose a lot of good players from a year ago, you think as a coach you're going to replace them, and obviously we haven't'.
That part of the quote was posted on 'X' by some without the rest of the context which continued 'again, it starts with me. I didn't do a good enough job coaching today. Put it on me, and we've got to make plays.'
That first part could have been damning enough even with the context of the rest of the quote, as current and former players, among many others, reacted. Narduzzi said he started finding out about the reaction while on the chartered plane back to Pittsburgh Saturday night and started addressing it with his team then. Sunday, he brought everyone together in the team room and cleared the air.
He said you feel bad after a loss. Then when you feel like you hurt your players with something you said, it hurts even worse. Narduzzi said he was sick to his stomach and didn't get a lot of sleep because of it Saturday night.
Relationships are one of the pillars of the program, according to Narduzzi. He said it's the number one thing they talk about all the time.
"The relationships that I have with our players is critical," Narduzzi said. "That never, ever can change. When you don't have a relationship with your team, you got an issue. I had a great team meeting with them last night. I think they know where I was coming from. I think they get it."
"You only get pieces of things sometimes in the world we live in. No one is graded on one night, whether it's a player or a coach. Whether it's how you play or what you say. You are not defined with one game or one afternoon. You are defined over time."
"I think over time; my guys are my guys. I love my guys. I know how bad they are hurting after that loss. My major message-I don't care, I love you guys. I wouldn't trade you for anything, period. Those are my guys. That's the way it always will be."
Narduzzi went on to say he didn't prepare his players like he should have and might simplify the message going forward to make sure all are on the same page. He said his coordinators didn't have the guys ready to play either and all of it comes back on the coaches.
"If we are not getting it done, what you see is what you coach," Narduzzi said.
He said it was a 'great' meeting Sunday and he thinks the players know where he is coming from and they 'get it'. Narduzzi said he also had individual meetings with players and said his door is always open to anyone who has an issue.
It's not just the players in the room he has to convince that he is loyal, but recruits and transfers he will go after to come to Pitt. Undoubtably opposing coaches and team recruiters will use this against players wanting to play for Narduzzi. He believes his track record will show his comments were a minor exception to what he has established at Pitt since 2015.
"(You are) graded over what you've done for nine years," Narduzzi said. "You can go back to going with (former starting QB) Phil Jurkovec for five weeks, it's loyalty. I always have loyalty to our football team, period."
"You can look at that or you can look at one six-second snipit, which one are you going to go with?"
